CHANDIGARH: Aam Aadmi Party national convener Arvind Kejriwal today hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi over his statement that the ruling Punjab leadership “mirrored the ideology of urban Naxals”, saying the BJP stalwart was allegedly insulting the three crore Punjabis who gave a sweeping mandate to AAP in the 2022 Assembly elections.
“From the statements of BJP leaders, especially Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah, it’s evident that they hate Punjabis. They are calling the 92 MLAs elected by Punjab voters as urban Naxals,” said Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal during this campaign in Punjab.
Accompanied by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, the AAP chief alleged that the world saw how the Modi government treated the farmers during their year-long agitation on the Haryana-Delhi border, “remaining callous to the death of 750 protesters”. In an exclusive interview to The Tribune on Sunday, Prime Minister Modi had said that the “ruling Punjab leadership mirrored the ideology of urban Naxals, and that the state people were worried that this mindset could again take Punjab on the wrong path”.
Condemning the statement, Kejriwal claimed that the BJP had nothing to showcase in terms of welfare schemes for Punjabis. “That’s why they just get up and start abusing their opponents, mainly to downplay the good governance delivered by the non-BJP governments. If they think by abusing us they can become formidable players in Punjab, they are mistaken… We have given them good schools, hospitals and free power. The BJP wants to stop all this. The only way Punjabis can answer the BJP is by rejecting them in the elections,” he said. The AAP chief asserted that the BJP leadership was not only trying to financially stifle the state government, but was even “threatening to topple it”. He expressed his anger at the statement given by Amit Shah in Ludhiana yesterday saying that the Punjab Government “would fall after the Lok Sabha elections”. “Since he has revealed his plot, Home Minister Shah should also clarify how he plans to overthrow a democratically elected government, with Punjabis choosing 92 of the 117 MLAs from AAP?” he asked.
Kejriwal said each Punjabi was now worried about the alleged conspiracy being hatched by the BJP. “How will you overthrow the government? Will you scare the Punjab people by sending the ED or the CBI to their doorsteps? Will you try to put a price on each Punjabi or impose the President’s Rule? I want to ask the people of Punjab too will you accept this ‘gundagardi’ (hooliganism)?” Kejriwal said in Bathinda and earlier during his roadshow in Jalandhar.
Kejriwal said Punjabis were large-hearted people and if the BJP had not used arm-twisting tactics, they would have given the saffron party one seat in the Lok Sabha poll. “But if you threaten them, they will reject you. The BJP should have learnt this lesson from the farm agitation in 2020-21. The Punjabi farmers were refused entry in Delhi and they stayed put at the borders till the BJP was forced to roll back the farm laws,” he said.
Punjab CM Mann said the BJP had “mastered the art of toppling democratically elected governments”. “They arrested Soren, orchestrated a split in the Shiv Sena and have recently put Delhi CM Kejriwal behind bars. But in Punjab, they cannot topple my government. You wait for the election results… AAP will be a force to reckon with,” he said.
Mann lamented that the BJP had completely ignored Punjab’s contribution to national food security. “We give 220 lakh metric tonnes of rice and 140 lakh metric tonnes of wheat to the central pool, but what do they do? They fire at our farmers who want to go to Delhi to talk to the Centre,” he rued.